Marti Cifuentes says QPR’s Championship season start has ‘not been good enough’
QPR boss Marti Cifuentes feels his side need to use the international break to work out why they have made such a disappointing start to the 2024-25 Championship season, writes Edmund Brack.
The west Londoners are in the bottom three after Saturday’s 2-0 defeat at newly-promoted Derby County – Curtis Nelson and Marcus Harness scoring in the second half.
Cifuentes’ side have just one win in the second tier this season and are two points above rock-bottom Cardiff City.
They take on fellow early-season strugglers Portsmouth, who are 23rd in the Championship and one place below them, after the two-week break from club football.
“It was a really bad first half – then we conceded two goals in quick succession,” Cifuentes told QPR’s website, reflecting on the defeat at Derby. “It’s not been good enough so far.
“When things are not going well, it’s very easy to point fingers. But the most important thing is how we react.
“Now we have an international break, which is going to be tough for us because we know we have two weeks of feeling bad about how we’ve done this week.
“It’s a time we need to use properly to look at what is missing and what we are failing at currently. We know there are areas we need to improve in and we mustn’t lose our heads – we need to be good enough to understand what we’re missing and keep on working.
“Last season, we were in a similar situation at the beginning and managed to turn things around – we’re disappointed to start in this way. But I’ve been in these situations before in my career and I will work my best to make sure we get out of this.
“We’ve signed a profile of player to play a certain style of football and we need to be better at playing it – when games get more physical, we need to be better at getting the ball on the ground and finding solutions.
“We need to play the football that we want to.
“We had over 2,000 here today and I’m very sad that we couldn’t deliver a better performance and result.”
PICTURE: PA